The collecting and
preserving of the Gaelic Names of Birds is a most important but much
neglected work, and one which is getting every day more difficult, from
their being less used now, and from the death of old people who knew
them. Not only are the Gaelic names dying out, but I am sorry to say
many of the birds themselves are dying out as well. Many of our noblest
native birds — the Great Auk, the Bustard, Stork, Bittern, &c., are
totally extinct in the Highlands; whilst the Golden Eagle, Sea Eagle,
Osprey, Ger Falcon, Goshawk, and a score of other noble birds, though
quite common in every glen half a century ago, are now only to be found
in the most remote and inaccessible corners of the Highlands and
Islands; and if the ruthless slaughter that has been going on for the
last generation goes on a few years longer, they will soon all be as
extinct as the Great Auk, or the Dodo of New Zealand. I am glad to say,
however, that some of the more patriotic proprietors in the Highlands
are now trying to preserve the eagles, and other large birds of prey.
One great cause of their destruction is the large price offered by
sportsmen and collectors to gamekeepers and shepherds for the eggs of
those rare birds, as well as for the birds themselves for stuffing.

How numerous the breeding places of the eagle used to be in the
Highlands can be seen by the number of rocks still called "Creag-na-h-iolaire"
(Eagle's Rock). I know a dozen rocks of that name in Athole alone. So
far as I am aware, there is as yet no complete list of the Gaelic Names
of Birds published. Alex. Macdonald (MacMhaighstir Alastair), in his
"Gaelic Vocabulary," published in 1741, gives a list of about 80 of the
more common birds; and Lightfoot, in his "Flora Scotica," published in
1777, gives about the same number, which may be thoroughly depended on,
as they were supplied by tliat famous Gaelic scholar and naturalist, Dr
Stewart, of Killin and Luss. In Grey's "Birds of the West of Scotland,"
a good many of the Gaelic names are given, as also, I believe, in
Professor ^lacgillivray's work on Birds, whilst most of the common names
are to be found in the Gaelic dictionaries, and in the works of our
Gaelic l)ards. I first began collecting and noting down the Gaelic names
of birds when a boy amongst the Grampians, and I have continued doing so
to this day, but the idea of making them the subject of a paper for the
Gaelic Society was first suggested to me by reading in Vol. VIII. of the
Transactions the Rev. Mr Mackenzie of Kilmorack's speech at the annual
dinner of 1879, in which he urged me to take up this subject, which I
did. I was then in the wilds of Ireland, away from all assistance, but
since I came to Galloway I have had the able help and advice of our
worthy Sheriff Nicolson, who not only gave me all the aid he could
himself, but took my list of Gaelic names with him to Skye and the
North, and got several gentlemen there to add many of the names of sea
birds which I had not got. To his splendid work on Gaelic Proverbs I am
also indebted for many. I am also under obligation to another good Gael
and able naturalist, Mr A. A. Carmichael, whose long residence in the
Hebrides gave him a thorough knowledge of the many rare birds of the
West Coast, and of the Gaelic names by which they are known to the
Islanders. He very kindly lent me a mass of notes on birds, which I have
freely used.

Shortly after I gave the Gaelic Society my paper on "The Gaelic Names of
Trees, Plants, &c.," Cameron's complete work on that subject appeared,
and I shall be very glad, indeed, if the same thing happens again, and
if some learned member of the Society, far more able to do justice to
this important subject than I am, will now follow me up with a complete
work on our Highland Birds and their Gaelic Names.

I have much pleasure in giving the Society the result of my labours, by
giving the following Gaelic names for about 240 different birds, making
up, as in many cases there are several different names for the one bird,
about 600 Gaelic names altogether. I will begin with the King of Birds.

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